Mauricio de Sousa is a Brazilian cartoonist who has created over 200 characters for his popular series of children's comic books.
At 17 years of age, he worked for a daily newspaper called Folha da Manhã as a crime reporter. In 1959 Sousa quit that job and began his comic book career. He created Turma da Mônica ("Monica's Gang"). Sousa's characters were inspired by children he knew from his childhood and by his own children. His later style is slightly reminiscent of that of Osamu Tezuka, a famous Japanese manga artist and personal friend.
His father, Antonio Maurício de Sousa, was a poet and a barber, and his mother, Petronilha Araújo de Sousa, also delved into poetry. Mauricio developed an interest in cartooning at a young age, and began to
